


it's fine (it's not)

by lonelydoctors



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Confession, Hurt/Comfort, Life's a bitch, Love Confession, M/M, Post-Thriller Bark, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Vinsmoke Sanji Angst, Zoro's Sacrifice, at least not more than they always are, i finally went back to my roots and wrote some good old angst, idiot in love, nobody in this fic is an asshole though, notice the singular form, roronoa zoro angst, this is my true form, very heavy on the hurt part, yeah - Freeform, zoro confesses to sanji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 08:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19373326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelydoctors/pseuds/lonelydoctors
Summary: “I love you,” Zoro breathes, “I fucking love you.”Sanji’s head starts spinning and he thinks he might have caught a fever or something somewhere because this is getting absurd.





	it's fine (it's not)

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by 'another place' by bastille and a prompt from tumblr:
>     
>     
>     'Oh, in another place, in another time, what could we have been?' & 'It's fine if you don't love me.'

That _Idiot_.

Honestly, what the _fuck_ was he thinking? Sanji is seething with rage, just thinking about it. Damn showoff, taking on more than he could handle.

 _Of course_ , Kuma’s ultimate attack was going to leave him with more than just a broken bone, anybody with half a brain could have figured that out. Which is why Sanji gladly volunteered for the challenge. It's only natural for him to give his own body and life in order for the crew to live, it's both his duty _and_ his privilege as a member of the Straw Hats. He owes it to all of them, he owes it to Luffy and most importantly he owes it to himself. This is how it was meant to be.

What he didn’t expect, however, was for a certain Swordsman to barge in and ruin his plans, insisting on playing the hero. Like he always does, that fool. Sanji clenches his fists and huffs in exasperation.

And what did that solve anyway, huh? Nothing, _absolutely_ nothing, at all. Instead of him, it's now Zoro lying unconscious in the infirmary, fighting for his life. Sanji thinks back to when he found him, standing in a pool of his own blood, and _God_ , there had been so much blood, his arms crossed stoically in front of his body, his expression unreadable. He refused to show any emotion whatsoever, not the slightest indication that he was in any pain at all – that was until he collapsed onto Sanji, drifting into a coma from which he has yet to wake up.

That _damned_ Idiot.

“Sanji-Kun…” a tentative voice interrupts his thoughts and he feels a hand touching his shoulder cautiously. “Nami-San,” Sanji acknowledges and turns around, his usual tirade of praise and affection painfully absent. It's not surprising, though, a grey cloud of gloom had been looming over the Sunny for a while now and even Luffy had been unusually quiet these past few days. Which is why it's even more of a surprise to find Nami beaming up at him through glossy eyes. “He’s awake,” she whispers, “Zoro’s awake, Sanji.”

Sanji’s eyes widen and his body goes limp as time freezes around him. He made it. That reckless Idiot really made it. All the tension falls of his body and it feels like he can breathe properly again for the first time since they left Thriller Bark. “He really – I don’t know – That’s…” he racks his mind for words, feelings, anything, “great,” he finishes lamely and feels foolish.

Nami just smiles at him and under any other circumstance, Sanji would have surely gushed over how _pretty_ Nami-San's eyes sparkle when she smiles and how the sunlight is making her red hair shine like _diamonds,_ but this isn’t any other circumstance and he doesn’t. “Forgive me, Nami-San. But I really need to have a talk with that Idiot right now,” Sanji declares and his eyes dart from Nami to the infirmary door and back. He really has some burning things to discuss with Zoro.

As he turns away, he hears Nami call out after him, “Sanji! Just– Be nice, okay?”

—

“You’re awake.”

Zoro looks _awful_. His hair sweaty and plastered to his forehead, various different cables and machines plugged into his body and too many bandages to even start counting them all. Evidently, that's what people who have an apparent death wish look like, Sanji reckons.

“Didn’t expect you to be the first one to visit, Curly Brow. Somebody must have missed me.” _Definite_ death wish.

“Cut the crap, Marimo,” Sanji snaps, thinking that he absolutely does _not_ have time for these games right now, “what the _hell_ happened back there?”

Zoro raises his brow, “I saved the crew.”

Sanji's disbelief at the ease with which the other talks about losing his life only lasts for a split second before he pulls himself together and yells, “You saved the crew, my ass!”, he pauses and breathes for a second, trembling with fury, “you shouldn’t have done that and you damn well know it. It was _my_ call, _my_ decision, you can’t just butt in and decide what I do or don’t do with my body. It’s still _my life_ and if I decide to go through hell for the people I love, then that is my choice!” Sanji breaks off and tries to calm himself, Zoro is heavily wounded, after all. “You could’ve died, you know!” he adds in a quieter voice.

Zoro blinks slowly and looks around at the endless medical equipment around him. “Well, yeah…” he drawls, “and you _would_ have.” 

He can't believe what he just heard. Is that Bastard really implying that – “I would’ve handled that attack way better than you,” Sanji’s voice rises with outrage again, “and just for the record –“

“I didn’t wanna lose you,” Zoro interrupts him before he can say anything else and Sanji’s face falls as he freezes mid-yell, mouth hanging open. “Come again?”

Zoro looks pained and quite frankly, Sanji can’t blame him. The amount of pain he must be in to say something that blatantly bizarre and ridiculous, he doesn't even want to imagine. He must have lost his mind. Zoro closes his eyes for a second and sighs loudly and, honestly, this doesn’t look even remotely like a man who lost his mind and that scares the shit out of of Sanji right now.

“The thought of losing you… I just – I couldn’t handle it, okay? Didn’t even wanna think about it, to be honest. So, what choice did I have? Everyone else was already injured, it was either gonna be you or me and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let it be you,” Zoro pauses and thinks, “if it had been you instead of me, and you really wouldn’t have made it… I know that it could just as well have been me then.”

Time seems to have come to a halt in the room, only Zoro’s strained breathing and the beeping of the machines indicating that time had, indeed, not stopped and Sanji is lost for words, staring at Zoro like a deer caught in the headlights, the cigarette in his mouth long forgotten.

“What are you implying?”

“I love you,” Zoro breathes, “I fucking love you.”

Sanji’s head starts spinning and he thinks he might have caught a fever or something somewhere because this is getting absurd.

“And I know that probably scares the shit out of you right now, because I’m Zoro and you’re… _you_ ” he gestures vaguely to Sanji, “and to be honest, I would have picked any other person over you but you like, kinda really can’t choose love and yeah that’s that,” he pauses, “it’s you, Damn Cook, I love you and I just finally want you to know because _fuck_ , this is exhausting.”

Sanji feels like somebody has pulled the rug from under his feet and he’s falling and falling and sinking, _drowning_ , and he can’t breathe. Maybe he got it all wrong, maybe it's actually _him_ who took the attack back then and this is all just a fever dream. His unconscious body's probably lying in the infirmary right now, Chopper desperately trying to get him to wake up, because there's _no way in hell_ that Zoro would ever confess to him.

“It’s fine if you don’t love me. I never expected you to. I just wanted to… get it out of my system, you know…” Zoro keeps talking and talking and talking like he didn't just shatter Sanji's world into a thousand tiny pieces and Sanji zones out.

He looks at the man in front of him, his body sculpted to the last muscle and his stupidly green hair that just _doesn’t make sense_ and he thinks that Zoro is a quite good looking man. He thinks of the way loyalty seems to be his first priority for everything and how he never makes things any more difficult than they are and he thinks that he _could_ love Zoro. He thinks of their fights and their arguments, their constant bickering and teasing and how he seems to understand parts of him that he doesn't quite understand himself, and yet he knows that he _doesn’t_ love Zoro. At least not in the way he needs him to.

Sanji takes a shaky breath and time starts running again. He feels his heart pounding in his chest, the blood rushing in his ears and he looks at Zoro and hates himself.

“I…” he starts and thinks of Nami’s words. _Be kind. “_ I’m sorry… I just –,” his voice fades out and he tries again, “I’m – I really am sorry, Zoro…”

Zoro swallows, "Like I said, I didn’t expect you to, Cook. It’s fine, really.” He looks at the bedsheets and Sanji looks at a head of sweaty green hair and a heart that’s hurting and he knows it isn’t fine. Sometimes life really is fucking cruel, he thinks, as Zoro’s words echo in his mind, _because I truly wouldn't mind loving you_.

_~_

_Oh, in another place, in another time, what could we have been?_

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are always greatly appreciated!  
> come talk to me about one piece on my [tumblr](https://lonelydoctors.tumblr.com)! :D


End file.
